Stellar Fragments

The harbor water lapped gently against the Black Sparrow II's hull, its surface now a mirror of starlight—no ripples, no eddies, just a calm so deep it felt unnatural.

Edmund stood on the dock, his silhouette sharp against the glow of the harbor lamps. He'd been gone for weeks, swallowed by the tide during our first descent into the observatory basement. Now he looked… whole. His coat was dry, his hair tousled as if he'd just stepped out of a dream, not a void that could unravel a soul.

"Edmund," I breathed. My legs felt leaden as I climbed out of the submersible, Claire at my side. Elias lingered behind, muttering about "cursed harbors" and "needles in haystacks," but his voice faltered when he saw Edmund too.

Edmund smiled. "Took you long enough." He held up a hand, and a small object glinted in his palm—a key. Not the Lighthouse key from the archives, but a simpler one, forged of bronze, etched with the same seven-pointed star as the Stellar Fragments. "Found it in the archives. Buried with Thomas's journal."

I stared at him. "You… you were there? In the archive?"

He nodded. "Not physically. The tide pulled me through. It's… connected to you now. To the fragment." He jerked his chin at the book still floating in the water. Its pages had stopped glowing, but the illustration of the bridge lingered, bright as a heartbeat.

Claire stepped forward, her pistol still in hand. "What happened down there? Thomas said something about the Leviathan being a child. About the barrier—"

"The barrier is breaking," Edmund said, cutting her off. His voice held a gravity I'd never heard before. "The tide isn't just rising. It's changing. The dead aren't just being pulled—they're being summoned. And the Leviathan…" He trailed off, his gaze fixed on the stars above.

I followed his eyes. The constellations looked… softer. Orion's belt dangled like a string of pearls, Cygnus's wings spread wide as if embracing the sky. Even Ursa Major, the Great Bear, seemed to tilt its head, as if listening.

"The stars are singing," I said.

Edmund smiled. "Yes. They've been waiting for someone to hear them."

A low hum vibrated through the air—low, resonant, like the world itself was a tuning fork. The water in the harbor rippled again, but this time, it wasn't chaos. It was a wave, rolling inward from the horizon, carrying with it a glow: bioluminescent plankton, but brighter, warmer, as if lit from within.

"Look," Claire whispered.

The wave crested, and we saw them.

Shadows. Not the voidspawn—human. Dozens of them, floating just beneath the surface, their forms translucent but distinct: a woman in a 19th-century dress, a man with a beard, a child clutching a teddy bear. They moved with the current, their faces peaceful, as if they'd been waiting for this moment for centuries.

"The dead," Edmund said. "They're returning."

Elias gaped. "But… they're ghosts. Right? They shouldn't—"

"They're not ghosts," I said. "They're… echoes. Memories made flesh by the tide. Thomas was right—the Leviathan isn't a beast. It's their grief, their anger, but also their love. They want to be remembered."

One of the figures broke free from the wave, drifting closer. It was a girl, no older than twelve, with curly hair and a dress stained with seawater. She reached out a hand, her fingers brushing mine—warm, not cold.

"Mama," she murmured. Her voice was a whisper, like wind through wheat.

A woman on the dock sobbed. I recognized her: Mrs. Hargrove, whose daughter had vanished during the first tide. The girl smiled, her form flickering like a candle, and then she was gone—dissolved into the wave, as if the sea had breathed her back into the world.

Mrs. Hargrove collapsed, clutching her chest. "Lila… my Lila…"

Claire put a hand on her shoulder, tears in her own eyes. "She's… she's here. For a little while."

The wave receded, leaving the harbor sparkling with stardust. The dead were gone, but their presence lingered—an echo in the air, a warmth in the wind.

Edmund placed the key in my palm. "This unlocks the Lighthouse. But you don't need to go there anymore. The bridge is here now. Between us. Between the living and the dead."

I looked at the Stellar Fragments, still floating. Its pages had shifted again, revealing a new illustration: a circle of people—living, dead, and in-between—holding hands beneath a sky full of stars. Above them, the words: "Remember Me."

"Thomas wanted this," I said. "For the dead to be remembered. For the tide to be a bridge, not a wall."

Edmund nodded. "And now it's up to us to keep it open. To honor them. To… love them, even when they're gone."

A shout echoed from the dock. Elias was waving frantically, pointing at the sky.

I looked up.

The stars were moving. Not shifting constellations, but entire galaxies—spiral arms, nebulae, black holes—all swirling in a slow, graceful dance, as if the universe itself was celebrating.

And at the center of it all, a single beam of light stretched from the observatory's lighthouse, piercing the sky like a sword, but glowing with warmth, not malice.

"The Lighthouse," Claire said. "It's… happy."

Edmund laughed. "No. It's listening."

The beam shifted, pointing not at the harbor, but at us—at the Stellar Fragments in my hand, at the key, at the memory of Thomas, at the girl who'd called for her mother.

And then, I felt it. A pull, not from the void, but from within. A connection to something larger, something ancient, something alive.

The dead weren't just echoes anymore. They were part of the tide, part of the stars, part of us.

And for the first time in centuries, the cycle wasn't a prison.

It was a home.